


Doggone Summer

by plumcat



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, High School, the only music they listen to is taylor swift, which wasn't intentional it just kinda happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-19 22:10:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19981333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumcat/pseuds/plumcat
Summary: Amy should have known it was going to be an awful summer from the moment Jake Peralta appeared on her front doorstep carrying a dog.“Morning, Ames,” he chirps, irritatingly cheerful, as if he’s passing her in the hallway at school rather than standing in front of her house during the sadly fleeting time of year she’s supposed to be free of this bullshit. “Cheddar, say hi to Amy.”The corgi swaddled in his arms, predictably, doesn’t respond. Jake fixes it with an offended frown. “Well, that was rude.”Amy sneezes a lot and thinks longingly of her bowl of oatmeal squares, now growing soggy on the kitchen counter. Her life was so much simpler ten minutes ago.





	Doggone Summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandylovesfandoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandylovesfandoms/gifts).



> here is my entry for the b99 summer fic exchange, a gift to @sandylovesfandoms on tumblr for the prompts first kiss, pining, & getting together. i'd like to extend a big thank you to em and erica for organizing this exchange, as well as to sapph for a) proofreading and b) being the absolute coolest. i love u
> 
> this is my first fic for this fandom, and i had such a blast writing it. hope you enjoy!! <33

**DOGGONE SUMMER**

Amy should have known it was going to be an awful summer from the moment Jake Peralta appeared on her front doorstep carrying a dog.

“Morning, Ames,” he chirps, irritatingly cheerful, as if he’s passing her in the hallway at school rather than standing in front of her house during the sadly fleeting time of year she’s supposed to be free of this bullshit. “Cheddar, say hi to Amy.”

The corgi swaddled in his arms, predictably, doesn’t respond. Jake fixes it with an offended frown. “Well,  _ that _ was rude.”

Amy sneezes a lot and thinks longingly of her bowl of oatmeal squares, now growing soggy on the kitchen counter. Her life was so much simpler ten minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, once her sinuses are no longer actively trying to eject her brain from her body via her nose.

“Someone made the grave mistake of trusting me with this dog,” he says, patting Cheddar’s haunch, “And I thought, man, this is going to be super boring if I’m by myself. And  _ then _ I thought, who not only has nothing else to do but is also responsible enough to stop me from committing accidental murder?” He frowns. “Manslaughter? Dog-slaughter? Dog-icide?”

“I think it would just be classified as animal abuse,” Amy says, momentarily distracted. Then she sneezes again, which jolts her back towards the issue at hand. She squints at Jake. “Why me? And how do you know I don’t have other plans?”

“All my other friends are out of town,” he says, “And so are yours, and I know that because we have the same friends.”

This is true. Terry’s upstate, taking a summer term at Syracuse; Charles and Gina are in Aruba on the biennial Boyle family holiday; and Rosa— Well, on the last day of school, she’d clapped Amy on the back, said, “I’ll be out of town until mid-July. Later, Santiago,” and proceeded to drop off the face of the planet except for some highly cryptic Snapchat stories.

“Kylie,” Amy points out.

“I’m still not convinced she actually exists.”

“You follow each other on Instagram!”

He raises an eyebrow at her, and says seriously, “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet,” which are strong words from the boy who was once briefly and passionately convinced that penguins could fly after one viewing of a badly edited YouTube video.

“It’ll be fun,” Jake says, when Amy’s unimpressed look makes it clear that his prior tactic isn’t working. “Or at least more fun than sitting at home rereading Harry Potter for the fifteenth time or whatever else you were planning on doing.”

That’s exactly what she was planning on doing. “Harry Potter is great,” she says defensively. “With a long-form series like that, you notice new things every time you read it—”

“Uh huh, sure,” says Jake. He hefts Cheddar higher with and sticks his cheerful little face right up to Amy’s. “C’mon, how can you say no to this face?”

Amy tries in vain to hit Jake, her efforts hampered by the fact that she’s simultaneously trying to move away from him. “Thtop, I’m thuper allergic,” Amy thays. Her throat ith thwelling up.

“Oh god, sorry,” Jake says, taking a couple steps back. Then another. “Is this a safe distance?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

There’s an awkward amount of space between them now, and something about standing there— him on her front porch, holding a dog, and her in the doorway, still in pajamas— at a distance that’s just a little too large for a normal conversation drives home the absurdity of the situation.

They’re friends, sure, but basically all of their one-on-one interaction is either during and/or about school. The only times they hang out elsewhere are in groups or in the corners of those upperclassmen parties that Gina somehow gets invited to. They’re not hang-out-during-summer friends. They’re  _ definitely _ not show-up-at-each-other's-house-randomly friends or dog-sit-a-corgi-together friends. 

At least, they weren’t until now. And the more Amy thinks about it, the less horrible the idea sounds.

Hanging out with Jake  _ is _ fun. Jake is fun. And he’s funny, and he’s here and beaming at her, all wide and open and innocently excited, like he’s actually so thrilled about the idea of dog sitting a corgi with Amy Santiago.

“Okay, to review,” Amy says, “You want me to come hang out with you… and look after this dog.”

“Yup. his name is Cheddar.”

“At… your house?”

“Nope.”

“At the dog— At Cheddar’s owner’s house. Cheddar, who is a dog that I am very allergic to.”

“Bingo!” says Jake, trying and failing to do finger-guns with Cheddar still in his arms. “You’re great at this, Santiago. You should be a detective.”

She finds herself smiling against her will. “That’s my career plan, actually.”

“Look at that, I’m psychic,” he says, grinning back, and her stomach does a funny little flip flop thing.

This is very stupid and very terrible. Amy sighs. “I’ll go get the cetirizine.”

Jake and Cheddar are wearing identical shit-eating grins.

* * *

A little over one hour ago, Amy had been sitting on a nice-ass couch in a nice-ass living room watching Grey’s Anatomy with Jake Peralta and feeling pretty good about her life decisions.

“See, this is easy,” Jake had said. “Dogs can’t really get into trouble. They don’t even have hands.” He was half-dangling off the couch in order to pet Cheddar, who seemed content to lie on the floor, heedless of the bloody drama playing out on the TV just behind him.

Whoever Cheddar’s owners were, Amy was in love with their house. It was gorgeous and tasteful— all the walls were so clean and white!— and with so much space that everyone in the Santiago family could easily have fit. Jake had waylaid her concerns about using their TV (and eating their… quinoa chips?) with an, “It’s chill, I practically live here,” and Amy was very jealous because all  _ her _ family’s ‘family friends’ had kids and small boxy houses with crayon-scribbled walls just like her own.

Jake clearly couldn’t appreciate the paintings and had cut off her speculation about whether the one over the mantle was a Roslin or just an imitator by pretending to snore.

And then Cheddar wandered behind the couch and started barking.

“Shh,” Jake said, “Cristina Yang is speaking.”

After a minute, Jake got up to see what was wrong, and then Cheddar sprinted in circles around Jake’s legs until Jake fell. He disappeared from view while Amy helped Jake to his feet, and materialized in the middle of the master bedroom after fifteen minutes of frantic searching— surrounded by the carcasses of several expensive-looking sweaters.

At least Amy’s antihistamine has kicked in.

“Oh no,” she says, despondent, clutching the shredded remains of a navy blue cardigan, “This is  _ cashmere _ .” 

“You slippery little bastard,” Jake hisses, pointing an accusing finger at Cheddar, who sprawls at his feet, happily panting and heedless of the disaster he has just caused. “When your father gets home, you are  _ in _ for it!”

“And it’s  _ Angora _ !” Amy wails, staring forlornly at the tag. “Cheddar, do realize how expensive these are?”

Cheddar barks once. He looks insultingly pleased with himself.

“In his defense,” Jake says, “I also had no idea. Plus, he’s a dog.”

Amy glares at him. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Jake plucks a jumper off the ground. “You know, when Holt said he was acting out, I didn’t think that meant brutal murder.” He kneels down and sticks the sweater in Cheddar’s face. “He had a family, you sicko!” The dog just leans forward to make another snap at the fabric.

Amy pauses, quietly reevaluates her life choices, and then says, “Wait, did you just say  _ Holt _ ?”

Jake looks chafed to be interrupted midway through his You’re Grounded speech. “Uh... yes?”

“As in… police captain Raymond Holt?”

“Oh yeah, that’s him,” Jake says, standing up and tossing the jumper onto the bed. “He taught this one course at the Junior Police Program me and Gina had to do in middle school. And I guess I was so annoying that he decided to take me under his wing. We have dinner with him and his husband every other Sunday. How do you know him?”

“Oh my god,” Amy gushes, flapping her hands with such excitement that a few sweaters she was holding crumple to the floor. Jake dives to the ground after them before Cheddar can make the lunge he seems to be gearing up for, his little ears flattened against his head (perhaps for the aerodynamics?). 

“Oh my god, I’m such a fan of his work! He caught the Disco Strangler! My oldest brother worked with him at the 7- 4 and he said he’s the most professional person he’s ever met— This is his dog?! Jake!” She slaps him on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you lead with that?!”

“I really didn’t think it was important.” Jake stares at Amy with a mixture of confusion and morbid interest. “Man, I can’t wait to tell him he’s a household name.” He pauses. “Then again, that’s probably just the Santiago household.” Amy has moved on to silent screaming and hand-waving. Jake watches her, his eyes soft with amusement or fondness or maybe just pure what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-her.

“Not to burst your little nerdy bubble, but we should figure out what to do about the sweaters.” He sets down aforementioned sweaters on the bed and crosses his arms. 

Amy visibly deflates alongside her ‘nerdy little bubble’. She finally has the chance to meet her hero, and his first impression of her is going to be  _ failed dogsitter _ . She hasn’t even had time to prepare some respectful remarks.

“Well?” says Jake expectantly, like he figures she’s got loads of sweater-damage-control ideas up her sleeve (ha ha) at all times.

“Well, I don’t know!” Amy huffs, crossing her arms right back at him. “This is bad, Jake, this is really bad. Holt is going to think I’m horribly unprofessional!”

“Also, he might not pay us.”

“The professionalism!” Amy wails.

“Man, I could’ve really used that money.”

They both stare forlornly at opposite walls, lost in separate trains of thought. Finally, Amy shakes herself out of it. “Do you think we can fix them somehow?” she asks.

Together, they contemplate the cardigans.

“Uhhhhhh,” Jake says. “No, probably not.” At once, he brightens, and snaps his fingers so loudly Amy jumps and turns to look at him. “But I do have another idea.”

* * *

Holt returns home shortly after they return from walking Cheddar, in the hopes that it will get rid of that excess destructive energy. They’ve just resumed their spot on the couch and their episode of Grey’s, when the sound of a door opening sends Cheddar skittering across the floor towards it, barking excitedly.

Holt enters the living room, Cheddar trotting in a perfect lockstep behind him. Amy tries not to hyperventilate. He is so tall. His demeanor so respectable. Exactly the kind of man that would create that color-coded serial system she’s only heard tell of in legends (read: Rafael’s cop stories).

“Hello, Jake,” Holt says. His voice is even dignified, a perfect accompaniment to his neatly pressed Captain’s suit. Amy imagines herself in such a suit, speaking in such a commanding voice, and nearly swoons from the force of wanting.

“Cap’n!” Jake says, springing up from the couch and dragging Amy behind him. He bounds towards Holt and holds out his hand for a high-five, which Holt reluctantly gives. “Arrest any cool serial killers today?”

“You know I am unable to disclose sensitive details about ongoing cases.”

“Dope,” Jake chirps, “I take that as a yes.”

Holt gives Jake a look so densely infused with exasperation that Amy tries to memorize the angles of his eyebrows and slant of his mouth in order to recreate it.

He then turns to Amy, who finds herself fervently wishing that her ponytail was sleeker today. “And who is this?” 

“Oh, this is my friend Amy,” Jake says. She manages a shaky wave.

“C’mon, don’t be rude.” Jake fixes her with a simpering smile. “Say hi, Amy.”

“Hi,” Amy squeaks.

Holt blinks. “Is she alright?”

“I love your work,” Amy blurts. “I want to be a detective when I grow up and I’ve read all the articles about your cases and you’re such an inspiration to me wait now that sounds like I’m stalking you I promise I didn’t even know this was your house— I’m going to stop speaking.”

Holt looks at her for a moment. His face is like stone. Amy gets the sense that he and Rosa would have some fascinating conversations.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Holt says.

Amy grabs Jake’s arm to prevent herself from toppling over on the spot. His bicep is surprisingly firm underneath all that plaid, a distant part of her brain notes.

“I hope Cheddar didn’t cause you any trouble,” Holt is saying, rifling through his wallet and handing Jake a couple uncannily crisp bills. “I have found him to be a bit of a terror recently. I think he is distressed by Kevin’s absence.”

“No trouble at all,” Jake says smoothly, shoving the bills into his pocket. Holt’s eyebrow twitches. “He’s as perfect as ever.”

Holt turns and gives Cheddar an approving nod. “Good boy.” He refocuses his attention on Jake “I am pleased to hear that. I have tomorrow off so your services will not be required. I will contact you about the following days.”

“Cool cool cool,” says Jake, “Gina says hi.”

“Give her my regards also.”

Jake shoots him a thumbs up. “Will do. Kay, byeeee, Cap!”

He exits the house, a still-mute Amy in tow. They stand together on the doorstep for a long, awkward moment, not speaking.

“Thanks for helping,” Jake says. “That was kinda fun.”

“Kinda, yeah,” Amy admits. “Except for the part when we destroyed a lot of sweaters, hid them in the back of the closet, and lied about it.”

“Those were Kevin’s sweaters and he won’t be back from France for, like, a week. They’ll never know  _ when _ it happened.”

“He might not even notice that they’re missing,” Amy says slowly. “They’re pretty well-hidden. And that brown one was really ugly.”

“Now you’re talking!” Jake grins and aims a pair of finger guns at her. “Santiago, it’s official. I’ve corrupted you.”

“Oh no,” Amy says, “Another week of this and I’ll be texting in all lowercase.”

“Who  _ doesn’t _ do that?” Jake says, laughing, before something seems to come over him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. He looks almost  _ nervous _ , for a reason Amy can’t decipher. “Also, uh. You don’t have to come next time. If you— don’t want.” 

“Oh,” Amy says. She hadn’t yet bothered to consider the option of  _ not _ going. One day and here he is writing himself into her subconscious plans, her half-formed expectations of What Comes Next. Even before Holt had mentioned the need for further dog sitting, she’d been expecting Jake at her door again the next day. “Well, I don’t know. If you don’t want me… ”

“No,” Jake says, a smidge too quickly, “I mean— It was more fun. Because I did it with you.”

“It was more fun with you too,” Amy says, meaning it, and Jake smiles, smiles, smiles.

* * *

Amy does go hang out with Jake the next time, and the time after that, and then several other times. Her mom is concerned by the amount of antihistamine she’s gone through. Sometimes they just watch TV on Holt’s admittedly impressive monitor. Or they’ll take Cheddar to the dog park, or the normal park, or just walk him into town and talk and talk and window-shop in all the stores they can’t enter with the dog.

She learns a couple things about Jake Peralta. His favorite artist is Taylor Swift. He’s failed math two years in a row. His mom works a lot. His dad is some variation of gone. He spends a lot of time at Holt’s house. He gets this softly thrilled look on his face when he manages to make Amy laugh.

Then, Holt’s husband comes back from France. Cheddar practically backflips with joy, and Holt’s lips tilt upwards almost an entire half-inch. Kevin is a sensible looking man, toting a sensible amount of luggage with him, and walks hand in hand with Holt into the living room.

“KEV!” Jake says, springing up from the couch and bounding across the living room to hug him. Kevin listlessly pats his back.

“Hello, Jacob.”

From her place on the couch, Amy feels like she’s both intruding into and sitting very far away from this odd little diorama of a not-quite-family.

Holt introduces her to Kevin as “Jake’s friend” (maybe Amy’s imagining it but she thinks there  _ might _ have been a  _ slight _ pause before friend, which makes her insides do something confusing) and says, “Amy, would you and Jake like to stay for dinner?”

“I’ll ask my mom,” Amy says, at the same time Jake chirps, “Uh, hells yes.”

Of course, Amy’s mom is totally fine with it, and so Amy spends the better half of the evening stammering nervously whenever Holt directs a question towards her. After Amy manages to totally butcher the sentence, “yes, I have seven brothers,” Jake takes pity on her.

“She’s not usually like this,” he says, “I was in English with her last year and she talked so much that the teacher placed a time limit on her answers to questions.”

“Jake!” she says, and hits him, “At least I didn’t ask if Frankenstein was a zombie!”

Kevin smiles a little at that, and from there, it gets easier. Holt relays an impressive litany of embarrassing stories about Jake and Gina as pretreens, which Amy absorbs with unrivaled glee. Amy’s not sure whether this new knowledge will help her (blackmail material) or hurt her (Gina committing literal murder) but the mental image of eleven-year-old Gina in knee high Converse well makes up for it.

Jake badgers Holt into telling some gruesome murder stories and feeds Cheddar pieces of chicken under the table. Amy and Kevin have a lovely conversation about Renaissance art, and Amy doesn’t say anything stupid and was right about the print above the mantle being a Roslin. 

It’s a good night, even if the chicken is on the tasteless side. Jake drives her home. It’s past 8:30 but the sun has barely started to set, tiny shards of pink starting to drip through the still-blue sky. Taylor’s voice croons Love Story from within the tinny car speakers and Jake’s singing along under his breath, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

They’re talking a little and he’s laughing at something she’s said, all bright and loud and unselfconscious in a way that Amy has never been, and it fills up the car and Amy’s thinking of eclipses, and staring at the sun, and his head is thrown back and almost haloed in the orange evening light—

Her chest does that funny thing again, that bump bump bump  _ oh _ .

And then her brain says: Oh. Oh.  _ Oh. _

“There we are,” Jake says, pulling to a stop in front of her house. “Casa de Santiago.”

Amy makes a face at him. “Your accent is terrible.”

Jake still manages to beam at her like that’s a compliment. “I guess you’re going to have to teach me, then.”

Amy laughs, and then considers, maybe a little too seriously, teaching Jake Spanish, and her heart does another thing. She should be getting out of the car. Her house is right there, and Amy needs to get out of the car and go home, but this abruptly feels like an ending and that fucking sucks, for a reason she hasn’t collected the courage to articulate.

Instead, she stares out the windshield at the street in front of them, mostly quiet and yet framed by the suggestion of life: Brightened windows in rows down the street, the sound of the football game on TV filtering through an open porch screen.

She can sense from her periphery that Jake’s looking at her, confused but not judgy, with this expression on his face that’s so open and earnest it tugs at her a little. She wants to turn to him and say, maybe, “Why are you looking at me like that?” but then he’d say something like, “Like  _ what _ ?” and then she’d have to explain  _ what _ and why she might want  _ what _ .

“I’ve had fun hanging out with you,” she blurts instead.

“What can I say, I’m a delight.” He smiles at her. “For what it’s worth, Santiago, you don’t totally suck either.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s real sweet, Jake.” Pushing open the car door, she steps out onto the sidewalk, instantly pressed upon by the sticky summer air.

The door shuts behind her, and she says, “Bye,” through it, and then Jake does too, and she waves as his ugly old car disappears down the street and out of sight. It turns a corner and disappears behind a blue-painted house, and Amy clutches her porch post and hopes her heart doesn’t beat out of her chest.

She realizes, with stomach-clenching certainty, that this was an ending after all. Cheddar doesn’t need to be looked after anymore. There is no need for dog sitting, no more meandering walks around the neighborhood, no more tossing popcorn into each others’ mouths while SVU plays in the background. Her summer is about to go back to what she used to think was perfect, and now she’s never wanted anything less.

* * *

As it turns out, an ending is just an excuse for something else to start.

Amy wakes up the next morning feeling unusually lethargic. She lies in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, before she peels herself out from under the sheets and stumbles downstairs without bothering to change or brush her teeth. The breakfast options are minimal, the kitchen already having been ravaged by her brothers and the Frosted Flakes decimated.

She’s midway through a piece of whole-wheat toast when her phone pings with a text. It’s Jake.  _ i’m outside. _

She stares at it, uncomprehending, for a second, then sprints out into the street, toast in hand, to find his horrible car parked in her driveway, and Jake standing next to it, leaning against the hood like it’s a Ferrari instead of a hunk of crap with peeling paint.

“Jesus, Santiago,” he says, raising an eyebrow. His gaze flicks from her rumpled Curious George t-shirt to the slice of toast in her hand, “Did you wake up ten seconds ago?”

She pouts at him, hands on her hips. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

He squints at her like she’s being the unreasonable one here. “I’ve come over here every day for the past few weeks.”

“Yes— Well—” Amy tries to explain the thing about endings, and why it should be different today, and realizes it sounds very foolish. “Well, I know you’re here now.”

“Uh-doy,” Jake says. “Now, come on, let’s get moving. My next door neighbor gave me free tickets to this blueberry festival, and it starts at ten.”

“What’s a blueberry festival?” Amy asks.

Jake beams and throws his arms out wide. “I have no fucking clue, Ames, that’s why we’re going!”

“Okay,” Amy says, and realizes she’s grinning too, wide and stupid like a kid on Christmas morning. “Okay!” She backs away towards her house. “I’m going to go change.”

“Wear blue!” Jake yells as she disappears inside.

Amy sticks her head back out to flatly say, “Ha ha ha,” and vanishes once again.

This becomes their new routine. Jake texts her a couple hours prior to warn her before he shows up at her house with some new scheme or plan for something to do. Sometimes the ideas are just ‘watch all five Die Hards and eat an entire tub of vanilla ice cream’ and others are, well, a blueberry festival (which turned out to be weirdly entertaining). Amy also contributes plans— and more often, vetoes Jake’s— and Jake follows her to whatever bookstore or gallery she’s fixated on that day with reasonably good humor.

One of these mornings, Amy’s brushing her teeth when her phone pings with a text. Predictably, it’s Jake.

_ soz busy w fam today try not 2 miss me too much _

She frowns at the screen, and fights off the swell of disappointment rising in her stomach, momentarily forgetting about the toothpaste dripping down her chin. After shifting the toothbrush to one side of her mouth in order to free her hands, she types out an:  _ Okay, have fun! See you soon _ , and sends it before she can start overthinking whether that’s too enthusiastic or too casual or or or.

It’ll be nice to have a peaceful day in, she tells herself, and collapses back onto her bed. She’s already gotten dressed and ready for the day, which now seems like a waste of energy, but she’ll live. The house is mostly quiet, all her brothers either out or deciding to shut up for once. She can hear her mom, though, moving around downstairs, her shuffling footsteps and the clinking of dishes the primary soundtrack for Amy’s thoughts.

Making the executive decision to  _ not _ spend the whole day wallowing in boredom, Amy plucks a book from her nightstand ( _ The Big Sleep _ , Raymond Chandler— she’s always loved crime novels) and settles in. She’s gotten through a couple chapters when her phone rings again. Assuming it’s Jake, she grabs it embarrassingly fast. Before she even looks at the caller ID, Amy realizes it’s not playing her default ringtone, but rather She Works Hard for the Money, which can only mean one thing.

Amy sighs and accepts the FaceTime. “Hi, Gina. How’s Aruba?”

Gina is sitting in what looks like a beachside cabana, flushed with sun and sipping a (hopefully non-alcoholic) mai tai. Her red bikini is very cute, and she looks genuinely happy to see Amy, which is new and nice.

“It’s terrible,” she sighs. She has acquired an excellent tan. “I hate my family. Every single Boyle cousin has sleep apnea.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“Thank god you picked up.” Gina swirls her drink and takes a long sip. “I needed to see a real human face. You know, I’m starting to think that the Boyles are actually—”

Before Gina can espouse her theory on exactly  _ what _ the Boyles are (Amy herself has considered the possibility of aliens and/or shapeshifting mice) Charles bounces into the frame, wearing a terrible Hawaiian shirt. He is very, very sunburned.

“Hi Amy!” he chirps, waving madly. “I miss you!”

“Get out!” Gina whines, flapping a hand at him, “This is a brother-free zone!”

Undeterred, Charles turns the laptop towards himself. His face is so close to the screen that Amy can see the peeling in the red of his cheeks. “Aruba’s been super fun! Even though I got a little burnt! It’s genetic, you know, us Boyles have thin skin. Jake told me that you guys have been hanging out, and I think you should know that I am so thrilled—”

“I’m feeling the Cain instinct!” Gina yells, brandishing a decorative throw pillow, and Charles scrambles.

He just manages an “IloveyouAmybye!” before disappearing from view.

“Love you too,” Amy says, bemused.

“Sooo,” Gina trills, “what’ve you been up to, girl?”

Amy squints at her. Something is definitely afoot. “What do you want?”

Gina blinks innocently at her. “I just wanna hear about your life, dear Amy, which I care about deeply, as your best and hottest friend.”

Amy just stares at her. Gina sighs and rolls her eyes so theatrically they almost fall right out of her face. Amy would be impressed if not for the fact that she’d seen Gina practicing it in the mirror on multiple occasions.

“Come on, loser, can’t you just work with me here? I’m  _ mega _ bored.” That seems more on brand. “All Charles wants to talk about is Dutch cuisine, which is horrible except for stroopwafels. What’s the action back in NY?”

Amy tries valiantly to think of something that Gina would find interesting, and comes up empty. Only Gina could make a lack of sordid drama seem like a fault. “No action really.” Gina makes a disappointed noise. “I’ve been hanging out with Jake. We looked after Holt’s dog for a while.”

“Oh yeah, Jake mentioned that,” Gina says. “I’m more of a cat person, what with their witchy potential, but Cheddar is the one dog that I wouldn’t want to devolve back into a wolf.”

Amy’s learned that the best way to stay sane through a conversation with Gina is to ignore the actual content of the words that exit her mouth. “Uh huh. Right.”

“Y’know what, though,” Gina is saying around a noisy slurp of her mai tai, “I never thought you guys were that close. I mean, he’s obviously my brother from another mother, and I his sister from another mister. We are, if you will, siblings from— hm.”

The conversation takes a brief detour from there. Five minutes later, Gina is frowning at her phone like it’s a misbehaving child. “What?! Only one?! RhymeZone, you scammer.” She smacks the top of the phone as if that will force more words into existence. “Amy, you’re a nerd. What the hell is a kibbling?”

“Well, Wikipedia says that it’s ‘portions  of small fish used for bait on the banks of—’”

Gina cuts her off with a, “Boooo-ring.” She sighs and tosses her phone onto the cushion next to her. “Well, that was a bust. Where were we?”

“Uh, somewhere around the part with you and Jake being the only twins in the world to not be actually related.”

“Oh, right!” Gina chirps. “So between that, and what with you, me, and Rosa and our unbreakable bond of female friendship, like a new age, three-person Spice Girls—”

Amy often suspects that Gina’s life occurs on an entirely separate plane of existence from everyone else’s, and that the two only occasionally collide.

“—I kind of figured you and Jake were only friends by proximity or whatever.” She tilts her head a little, her voice sweetly affecting and touched with something that almost seems like… could that be… genuine curiosity? “Was I wrong?”

Amy nibbles thoughtfully at the inside of her cheek. “Well— no. I only started hanging out with him because everyone else is out of town.”

“So it’s, like, a necessity thing.”

“No,” Amy corrects, “I mean, I  _ like _ him— hanging out with him. He’s… sweet.” Oh, god. What a dumb thing to say. Amy physically  _ feels _ herself going red.

Gina’s eyebrows have disappeared into her hairline. She has a fantastically expressive face. “What, you got a crush on Jake or something?”

Amy opens her mouth to deny it, but then remembers that she’s a terrible liar. She sighs. “Yeah. I think I do.”

Gina gasps. Loudly. “Awwww!” She clasps her hands together beneath her chin, looking so delighted it’s almost certainly mockery. “That’s adorable! Dork one and dork two! Also, just a pro tip, he likes girls in red.”

Amy opens her mouth. Shuts it. Mentally files away that information. Opens it again. “Are you trying to...  _ girl talk _ me?”

Gina steeples her fingers and sighs. “Look, pup, I may seem like I’m beyond worldly attachments—”

“You own twelve phone chargers.”

“— But I want you two losers to be  _ happy _ .”

Amy blinks, thrown by that. “I— Oh.” 

But… 

“It doesn’t matter,” Amy sighs, looking down and picking at a loose thread in her comforter. “He doesn’t like me.” Having spoken it out, the knowledge loud stings more than Amy expected. It’s perhaps the destiny of the Amy Santiagos of the world— To be just tolerable enough to befriend someone wonderful, but not quite so charming as to be fallen for.

A moment passes in silence.

Then Gina starts  _ laughing _ . Amy snaps her gaze upward to see her doubled over, halfway out of frame. She’s too hysterical to notice the (damn good) glare Amy fixes her with.

The fit goes on for an insultingly extended amount of time. “Oh, girl,” she wheezes, sitting back up at last and wiping fake tears from her eyes, “I  _ promise _ you he does. May I remind you that I’ve known Jake since, like, pre-womb. I can practically read his thoughts.”

“That’s impossible.”

Gina just shrugs and turns up the Witchy Eyes. “I would’ve said it’s impossible for a human being to look halfway decent in a grey pantsuit, but look at your tenth grade formal pictures.”

“Hey!— Wait. Thanks? Wait.”

“Boy’s been into you since for _ ev _ ah,” Gina says, trying to sound wise. Her eyes are very wide. It makes her look a little mouseish. “He always goes out of his way to talk to you… or make you laugh… or walk you to class… “

“Only if we happened to be going in the same direction,” Amy protests weakly.

“And now he’s coming up with these random things to do so you guys can hang out every single day.”

“Well, that  _ just _ started recently—”

“Those are basically  _ dates _ , honey,” Gina says, jabbing her finger at the screen as if to forcibly shove some sense down Amy’s throat. “He’s head over heels for your dumb ass.”

“He doesn’t like me,” Amy says, too loudly, and then looks away from Gina and at her book case instead. She counts the ones on the top row, all the way to seventeen, a breath between each number.

Gina huffs, her annoyance almost tangible through the screen. “Well, why don’t you want to believe me?”

Amy doesn’t say anything. She’s aware Gina thinks she’s being stupid, and even stupider is Amy’s heart, hammering in her chest like a valiant hummingbird, because somehow the thought of Jake liking her is more nerve wracking than the thought of him not. ‘Not’ she can deal with. She finds she’s not sure how to approach the idea of being wanted. 

There are so many confusing things about… about boys, and dating, and the idea of kissing, like how do you know if he finds you charming and who’s supposed to pay and where do you put your hands. It’s all so complicated and messy and awful and should be undesirable— And yet, there’s that one, persistent part of Amy that  _ wants _ .

“I don’t know,” Amy says finally. “It all seems so hard.”

“Amy,” Gina says, exasperated, “It’s  _ Jake _ .”

Well. Yes. That it is.

When Gina speaks again, her voice is softer, measured.

“Frankly, I don’t how to deal with whatever crisis you’re having right now, but I swear I’m even more right about this than I am about everything. I will bet you actual money.”

The part of her brain that drove little third-grade Amy to punch a boy when he beat her in four square (and subsequently earned her a two-week suspension) sits up at the sound of competition. “I’ll take those odds.”

“Alright, your funeral,” Gina says. “Twenty bucks says Jake is as into you as you are into him.”

Amy hesitates. Twenty bucks is not a substantial amount of money, but it’s not nothing either, and Amy has been raised nothing if not frugal. She scrunches up her face, thinking. “Ten.”

“Bawk bawk,” Gina whispers, making chicken wing motions with her arms. “Bawk bawk. Someone knows I’m right!”

“Fine,  _ thirty _ ,” Amy snaps, before she can think better of it. 

“Sold!” Gina crows, throwing her arms up in the air. She sticks out a hand towards Amy, and they awkwardly mime a handshake through the screen. It feels as stupid as it sounds.

There’s a bit of a silence. Gina sucks on her straw some more, even though the glass is empty.

“Sooo,” Amy says, “What have you been up to—”

“Gina!” Charles skids into frame again, “Everyone’s going swimming, wanna come?”

“Sure!” she says, “Just a minute.” She redirects her attention back to Amy. “You got this, girl. Go get your man.” She makes a vulgar hand gesture, cackling at Amy’s scandalized face, before wiggling her fingers in a dainty facsimile of a wave. “Buh-bye now, Poseidon is calling me!”

With that, FaceTime shutters out. Amy collapses back onto her bed and decides she’s never felt more confused in her entire life.

* * *

Jake is totally MIA for the next four days. 

He doesn’t text her. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t show up at her house. Amy’s not— She’s not  _ mad _ at him. It’s not like they had concrete plans or anything. But still. It’s a dick move.

Amy thinks about texting him, but isn’t quite sure what to say or what she’d do if he didn’t respond. She helps her mom out around the house and spends time with her brothers, which she probably should’ve been doing more of in the first place, and it’s fine. Good, even.

On the night before the fifth day, Amy wakes up to the sound of something indistinct outside her window. Her first thought is something along the lines of ‘ughufdhsj’, her second thought is ‘what the hell kind of time is it’, her third thought is ‘stupid fucking neighbors’. She rolls over and squints at the clock. 12:09am.

She tries to come up with a good reason  _ why _ she should be awake at this godforsaken hour, rolls over, and pulls the pillow over her head. Whatever nonsense her neighbors have decided to undertake at twelve oh nine in the am can wait to be cared about until morning. She’s almost drifted back into sleep when she hears it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Someone is knocking on the glass.

Amy sits bolt upright, then freezes and tries to breathe as little as possible. She flashes back to that horrifying Times expose on the Golden State Killer and sends up a panicked prayer to the god she stopped really believing in at age eleven. She strains her ears but hears only silence, mingled with the clicking of the AC and the creaking of the house’s old boards. 

After a minute or so, the tapping resumes. This time she realizes something.

It’s the rhythm of the Funky Cold Medina.

Carefully, oh so carefully, Amy peels herself out of bed and creeps over to the window. Barely breathing, she presses her back to the wall next to the window, pulling back the curtain and tilting her head just enough to see a sliver of Jake Peralta’s grinning face.

She immediately throws the curtains open and cranks open the window, forgetting for a second to be quiet. “God, Jake! You scared the shit out of me!”

Amy’s room is on the first floor, so they’re close enough to talk without raising their voices, but not close enough for Amy to slap him. Instead, she just glares and hopes he gets the message.

“Good evening!” He warbles in an exaggerated British accent, folding in half in a sarcastic bow. He’s wearing blue striped pajama pants and a t-shirt, plus his beat-up leather jacket despite it being a solid 70 out. Besides the presence of the pajamas, it doesn’t look like he’s slept at all— His energy is infectiously obnoxious as ever, and his hair falls over his forehead in its usual careful curls.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uhh, what am I  _ ever _ ?”

She squints at him. “I don’t know, you only ever come over here when you want to hang out.”

“Bingo!” He claps his hands and turns it into a set of finger guns. “I’ve got a car, you’ve got a window, we’ve got this whole damn city!”

“No,” Amy says on reflex, crossing her arms. “It’s past midnight, if you haven’t noticed.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Ames. This is, like, rule breaking lite,” he says. “It’s not like we’re going to a party or something. It’s just you and me doing the same things we always do, except—”

“— except  _ it’s past midnight _ ,” Amy finishes.

“Right! That.”

Amy looks up at her ceiling and chews at the inside of her cheek. It’s not like Amy has  _ never _ snuck out or anything like that before, though that one time Gina’s bright idea of the week ended with Amy and Rosa holding her hair back as she puked her guts out onto a topiary peacock had kind of turned her off the experience.

Plus, as lame as it sounds, she’s  _ missed _ Jake. She trusts him. And, yeah, it sounds fun. She sneaks a glance down at him. He grins and shoots her a thumbs up.

“You’re the worst, Jake,” Amy says, and sighs. “Give me five minutes. I’ll be right out.”

She closes the curtains on Jake’s “Yesss!” and sets about a quick freshening up. She tosses her hair into a messy ponytail and keeps on her grey sleep shorts, but grabs her favorite blue sweater out of the closet. She puts it on, considers, puts it back, and takes her red one instead.

After slipping into a pair of flip flops, she tugs open the curtain and attempts to climb through the window, which turns out to be harder than it looks. Finally, she hops down onto the ground, stumbling forward a little into Jake’s chest.

He grabs her arms just in time to stop her from sending them both careening backwards into the gravel. The warmth of his hands is tangible even through her sweater, and it sends a jolt of something sweet shooting up her spine.

“You good?”

“Yup,” Amy squeaks. Their faces are so close she can see his pupils, blown wide in the darkness, and outlined with a strip of brown-green-gold. After a moment, she steps back and fiddles with her hair, tucking it behind her ears. Jake has a weird expression on his face, and she turns away to stare at the orange tree in her front yard, its spindly branches supple in the balmy breeze and reaching towards the starry sky.

When she looks back towards him, he’s halfway across the front yard, heading towards the car. She jogs a little bit to catch up, falling into step beside him.

“So, where are we going?”

Jake hums, tapping his chin with his car keys. He presses the unlock button and the car lets out a tired-sounding beep, headlights coughing into brightness for a bare second. Amy tugs open the passenger side door and plops down onto the well-worn leather seat. The car may be ugly as hell, but there’s something comforting about it— something almost friendly.

Amy reclines her seat a little more, propping her feet up on the dashboard as Jake slides into the driver’s seat and guns the ignition. She normally wouldn’t do such a thing, but the car has been Jake’d-up enough that she figures her flip-flops won’t make a difference.

“There’s this 24-hour diner about fifteen minutes from here,” Jake says. He’s resting his elbow on the shoulder of Amy’s car seat, using the leverage to peer behind his shoulder as he backs out of the driveway and into the street. “Charles says they have good fries.”

Amy wrinkles her nose. “Does that include some kind of internal organ?”

“Knowing Charles? Maybe. I’m placing my bets on liver.”

“Ehh,” Amy makes a so-so motion with her hand. “That seems tame for him. Liver’s pretty common. Like in pâté.”

They’re cruising down the road at a smooth pace now. The houses and street lamps blur together until they’re just one puddle of conception, tilted faces sprinkled with moonlight. Jake looks away from the road to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at Amy. “You say that word like you expect me to know what it means.”

“You’re best friends with Charles and you don’t know what pâté is?!” Amy says, trying not to laugh. Jake pouts, looking almost legitimately wounded by that.

“... Is it a soup?”

They bicker over music for a bit after that, Amy rifling through and criticizing Jake’s shitty Spotify playlists, which are an odd weird mix of rap and early-2000’s pop. All Star makes an unironic appearance.

Eventually they settle for Top 40, and fall into a comfortable silence. Amy stares out the window, watching as the houses fly. There’s something pretty— if unsettling—about seeing familiar places at night, as if there’s a newness pulled over them like a shroud that, despite the darkness, makes you see them all the more clearly.

She glances over at Jake. He’s tapping his fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel as Taylor Swift croons about archery or something. He looks nice in this light, blurred at the edges, the planes of his face intersects with splashes of shadow. The contrast makes him look drawn, almost, like he’s tumbled out of a painting and into the car seat beside her, confusing/lovely/untouchable. Though who would paint a sixteen-year-old boy in his pajamas— except for Amy, if she could?

“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Amy blurts before she can stop herself.

Jake’s fingers still on the steering wheel. “Uh-huh.”

Amy is cringing at herself, but her mouth won’t stop moving. “I was just wondering, because, y’know, we’re friends now and all that, and it would’ve been nice to know you weren’t dead or avoiding me.”

“Right,” Jake says. His voice is oddly flat. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just— family stuff.”

She waits for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.

“Cool,” Amy says. 

The silence is no longer comfortable. The world outside the window seems barely to be breathing, and Amy closes up her lungs along with it, shuttered and tense like the rows of sleeping shops and blinded windows.

“My dad’s back in town,” Jake says finally. Amy turns back towards him so fast her neck cracks. He’s still not looking at her.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Another pause.

“Him and my mom are  _ dating _ again, which is insane, right? After he cheated on her and left?” His voice is picking up in both speed in volume, one hand flying off the steering wheel and into a series of wild gestures. “He just comes back nine years later, as if he’s never been gone, like time to be a family again, and expects me to just be  _ fine _ .” He turns towards Amy. “That’s insane, right?”

“It is insane,” Amy says, gently. “That really sucks, Jake.”

He blinks at her, breathing audibly, and looks older and scared and sadder than she’s ever seen him. She wants to reach over the center console and put her hand on his arm. After a second, the fight visibly leaves him, and he deflates back into his seat. “... Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “ _ I’m _ sorry.”

He smiles, a little. “Next time my life goes to shit, you’ll be the first person I call.”

She smiles, a little, right back. “Glad to hear it.”

“While we’re at it,” he says, “Sorry for waking you up. I suddenly didn’t really feel like being at home.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So you showed up at my window at midnight like a serial killer after ghosting me for a week?”

He flashes her his most charming grin. “That’s the gist of it.”

“You’re forgiven,” Amy says. “Anyway, I didn’t mind that much.”

He smiles at her then, for real, like being there with her in a crappy car on the way to a crappy 24-hour diner In the middle of the night is making his crappy life okay. It’s like Amy has been knocked back into her seat with the force of a thousand watts, and just like that, something unspoken inside her solidifies into words. She finds, unexpectedly, that she wants to let them out.

“Jake—” she starts.

“Oh look!” He chirps. “We’re here!”

Jake pulls them into a spot in the deserted parking lot and hops out, Amy following. Everything is perfectly still, as if they’ve managed to intrude upon a photograph. Staggered spotlights of yellowish glow from the street lamps create a jarring patchwork of light and dark, their car parked right in the center of a circle of light.

Across the small lot, an eye-searing display of neon advertises BREAKFAST AROUND THE CLOCK. The tiny diner looks more “we haven’t renovated since the 80’s” than “trendy 80’s-inspired decor”, a near-still tableau void of all life except for an exhausted waitress mechanically soaping down a table.

Jake puts his hands on his hips and surveys the scene. “Well, this is depressing.”

Amy leans against the back of the car. “I’ve always wondered who these things are marketed towards. I mean, with Postmates and fast food and everything, who goes to have a sit down meal past, like, nine pm?”

“Theater kids,” Jake says without missing a beat. “And us, apparently.”

“Touche.”

He claps his hands together. “C’mon, let’s go. I’ve gotten myself all hyped up for shitty pancakes and you can’t deprive me any longer.”

“Wait.”

“Yeah?”

She gathers her courage. Opens her mouth. Closes it. 

“Your collar is crooked,” she says, because Amy Santiago is scared of everything.

She steps forward to free the collar of his jacket from where it’s folded underneath itself, focused on smoothening it out for longer than necessary to hide the residual embarrassment coloring her cheeks. Finally, she looks up, and Jake is staring at her. Their noses are inches apart, and he’s looking at her with something in his eyes that even she can’t quantify and overanalyze and misinterpret.

“Amy,” he says, “I have something to tell you.”

Well, Amy thinks, it’s not bravery if you’re not scared, and she leans up and kisses him.

Their chins bonk together before their lips meet, and their teeth click together once they do, and it’s a little clumsy but a lot exhilarating. Jake adjusts the way he’s turning his head and yup,  _ that’s _ better, and suddenly Amy’s arms are over his shoulder and his hands are on her back, sliding across the stitching of her sweater, smooth and almost reverent. There are no fireworks, but there is a lot of warmth, and Amy on tip-toe in her flip flops and the steady weight of a hand at the small of her back, and, and, and, and.

Jake pulls back. His hair is mussed, curls spilling haphazardly across his forehead. Under the sharp, warm glow of the streetlight, he looks vulnerable and golden and thoroughly kissed.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Amy says, feeling a little loopy herself, and tries to reel him again by tugging on the front lapels of his leather jacket.

“No,” he says, putting a hand on her chin to stop her, “Shit. I bet Gina twenty bucks that you didn’t like me back.”

“Oh god,” Amy says, “I bet Gina thirty bucks that  _ you _ didn’t like  _ me _ back.”

They stare at each other, agape, for a grand total of five seconds before bursting out laughing.

“Good thing we still have that dog-sitting money,” Jake says. “I bet now you’re grateful we didn’t own up to the sweater destruction.”

“I’ve been grateful for that ever since I met Holt.”

He throws back his head and laughs again. “See, everything works out.”

“Yeah,” says Amy. “I guess it does.”

Jake grins and holds out an arm, his butchered British accent back in place. “Shall we, madam?” 

She threads hers through it and props her chin up on the broad, warm plane of his shoulder. She tries to look haughty but can’t fight down the big, stupid grin that’s rising, unbidden, on her face, like oil through water, sun through sky. “We shall.”

Nothing is forever, but something is right now, something bright as summer and steadfast as Jake’s hand on her back. She leans up and kisses him, just because she can, and realizes that she hasn’t worried at all about where to put her hands, or who’s supposed to pay, or whether she’s being charming because, yeah, Gina was right. It’s Jake.

“Cool cool cool,” Jake says, as they walk as one across the dingy parking lot towards the squares of golden light emanating from within the diner, little smudges of brightness against the greyscale spread of the city. He bumps his hip with hers. “It’s a date.”

* * *

“You’re a terrible person,” Rosa says, though the force of her words are dimmed by both the grin on her face and the tinny warping of her voice through the phone speakers. The image in the video call gives no clues as to her location— It looks a bit like she’s lying in bed and holding the phone above herself, and even that’s dicey.

Gina, wearing a snuggie and a garish pair of rhinestone studded sunglasses (despite being inside an airport terminal) raises her eyebrows in mock offense. “I helped those losers achieve true love and only took fifty bucks for my trouble,” she says. “I’m basically Mother-fucking-Teresa.”

“There are so many things I hate about that sentence.”

Gina daintily shoves a handful of flaming hot cheetos into her mouth. Rosa bemusedly watches her chew. 

“I’m glad they worked out,” Gina says after a moment. There’s a little bit of cheeto dust on her cheek. “I was starting to get emotionally invested, and I hate being disappointed.”

“They’re good together,” Rosa says. “It’s so weird. What does Charles think about it?”

“He’s thrilled that they’re dating but fainted before I could get to the part about the money.”

Rosa snorts. The frame shakes a little, briefly exposing a small strip of a wall that may or may not be blue. “Good. He’d cry.”

“It’s kindness itself that I didn’t say fifty apiece,” Gina drawls, examining her nails. “Still. I’m gonna buy so much fancy lavender Anthropologie shit for Babylon with this cheddar. I’d wave it in your face but they Venmo-ed it to me.”

“Please never go into organised crime.”

Gina peers over the tops of her sunglasses and smiles a smile with just a pinch of softness bleeding into the edges. “The mafia would be so lucky.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i'm the only one who cares abt this but to clarify! holt & kevin do not have an actual fucking roslin in their living room it's a print lol
> 
> you can also find me on tumblr at @timeforginasopinion, where i post art, writing and badly edited memes abt my favorte sitcoms.
> 
> comments are really helpful to writers, especially ones such as myself that are just starting off in a fandom, and every one means the world to me. thank you so much for reading!!


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